


Icefall

by Lannakitty



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: F/M, I dont care I still ship it, Missing Scene, Post Raid
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 05:46:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18844843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lannakitty/pseuds/Lannakitty
Summary: The final moments of the Battle of Dazar'alor, and what follows.





	Icefall

**Author's Note:**

> sooooooooooooo three years ago when I said I feared they'd turn Jaina into a raid boss... this is not what I expected to see. And I am thrilled it did not go in the way I fulled expected it to.
> 
> Anyway, here is my shippy end of the raid. Unconnected to any of my other WoW writing.

_No_ , she thought. _It couldn't end like this._ Not when she'd just begun to find herself again. Drawing on fading strength, Jaina summoned mirror images to confuse the Horde forces, then manifested barrage of arcane power scattering and knocking the the Horde forces back, encasing many in ice, injuring others and giving herself some space to breathe. She checked the area. Had she held off the Horde navy long enough for her own to escape? An arrow sliced across her shoulder. The wound stung and Jaina knew she'd been hit with more poison. The Horde champions were regaining their footing and breaking the fellows out of ice. One of her prismatic images fell. They would kill her next.

 

Steeling herself, Jaina dug deep within, trying to find the power to leave, to return to her family with her life. The icy shield came together slowly, the teleportation spell event more sluggish than that, her body not reacting the way it should. Her arm appeared to have been broken by that last shield bash from one of the Blood Knights. The last mirror image she'd summoned, placed between her and the Horde as a last defense, shredded before her eyes as the spell came together.

 

Jaina reappeared on the deck of her flagship. The sea swelled, sending her to her knees. Blood dripped onto the wood beneath her. The poison burned, breathing was difficult, though she could not say if it was the toxin or the broken rib she'd suffered when an angry warrior had rushed her with a shield

 

There was shouting around her, but it sounded distant to her ears. The ship rose and fell with the sea as the Tidesages called on wind and water to spur the ship towards home at the best speed. The rocking was soothing.

 

Jaina had spent her earliest days on the sea. She'd been taken aboard her mother's and father's ships as soon as her mother had been released from childbed. The motion of a ship under sail was achingly familiar to her despite so many years living on land. She heard her brother's voice calling out over the wind and waves. Jaina turned towards the sound, smiling faintly.

 

She could go home now.

 

Everything hurt, but her mother might make it better. Tandred would take her home. She would be welcome at home...

 

"She's badly injured! Healer!" Tandred called out. Someone grabbed her broken arm and Jaina's world became incandescent pain. She screamed as her vision greyed out, faint power flaring from her hands, burning her.

 

The world resolved itself some unknown time later. The clouds passed overhead as she still rocked with the motion of the ship at full sail. She was floating - no... She was being carried on a stretcher. Downward. Smooth, well crafted dark wood replaced the sky as she was taken in to a cabin.

 

She was in pain. So much physical pain. Her broken arm throbbed and ached with every rapid heartbeat as the poison burned in her system. Her broken ribs screamed for attention with each breath. She was hot and... She had no magic! Jaina panicked. There was _nothing_ left in her magical reserves. Jaina reached for the ambient magic of Azeroth but the touch _burned_ and she whimpered. Too much. She'd done too much. A moment more and she'd have been killed, but she's stretched to far and was burned. She was burning. She couldn't get cold. Her heart beat like a caged bird. Poisoned. She'd been poisoned.

 

She might die here.

 

 _Kalec_ , she thought. She was cut off from her greatest joy and strength, her Magic. Magic led to thoughts of the person she loved, who understood her best, who'd shared this joy with her. _Kalec, help_ . The poison burned and her body ached. _I still have so much I want to do_ , she thought as her vision greyed out. _I have so much to set right with you and everyone_ , she thought as she reached again for magic which would not come. She strained to touch the arcane but the brief touch she managed burned like acid. She gasped a sob of pain. **_Help_ ** . _I don't want to die._

 

"Here," said a gruff voice. Greymane.

 

"Careful." Her brother's voice, a commanding warning. He'd grown into such a good leader while she'd been estranged. She wanted to stay, to see that.

 

Jaina looked to the side, her head heavy and hard to move, the blazing heat had started to alternate with biting cold. She felt sick. Tandred was in command. It was reassuring but Jaina felt a crawling terror rise in her chest. She'd begun to patch up her relationship with her surviving family, but there was still so much to do. So much to say.

 

 _I don't want to die. I don't want to leave you,_ Jaina thought. In Thros she'd given up, but here her chest burned with the desire to live. She wanted to see her mother again. She wanted to see Kalec. She wanted to laugh with her brother. Jaina tried to speak but her words tasted of blood.

 

Oh. Blood was bad.

 

Tandred turned to her and Jaina could see the brief look of shock turn into terror before he  steeled himself. "Hang on," he said, it was half a command and half a plea. "Healers are coming. Jaina, you'll be fine." It sounded like he was reassuring himself more than anything.

 

Jaina coughed, choking on blood, gasping for air. The broken rib protested this and Jaina's senses were stolen by pain, everything becoming darkness....

  
  


The blackout pain subsided and Jaina was left with a racing heart and even faster thoughts. _I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. Not like this. Not like this. Please help me. Please. Azeroth. Kalec. Anyone. Please, I want to stay._

 

"Get her on the bed!"

 

"How is she even alive?" a hushed whisper.

 

"HEAL HER." Her brother's command. He was afraid.

 

Jaina's whole body shuddered without her conscious control. She was freezing, her teeth chattering. How? She was a frost mage! Oh. That would have been the... something. Jaina's thoughts slowed as she was carefully moved from the stretcher to a bed. Careful but not careful enough when she'd sustained so much trauma.

 

Sound became a distant ringing in her ears as her vision began to grey out. _Mama, I'm afraid..._

 

Then Jaina Proudmoore knew no more.

 

* * *

 

 

" _Jaina_!" Tandred called as Jaina's eyes lost the last of their blue glow, rolled up, then closed.

 

"She's just unconscious," the tidesage said even as he called on healing waters. Tandred could hear the unspoken _"For now."_

 

"Let them work, Tandred," Genn said, gently herding him away. "Let them have the space to save her life."

 

Tandred stepped back only then, watching in mute horror as the two healers spoke to one another in hushed, urgent tones. Jaina's clothing, ruined by the fight, was cut away so her wounds could be examined and treated. There were so many...

 

"She saved us again," Tandred said, mostly to himself.

 

His big sister had appeared on the deck of the ship, her clothing ripped, singed, bloodied and torn. Her hair had come loose from the braid and whipped wild and free in the wind. Her eyes blazing with power, matched only by the staff she held. She'd been a vision of war itself; bloodied and beaten yet still standing.

 

Until she'd fallen to her knees, the staff slipping from her senseless fingers. Her blood rapidly pooling on the deck.

 

"We must return quickly, Captain," one of the healers said, drawing Tandred from his reflection.

 

With a grim-faced nod, Tandred left them to their work. He couldn't heal but he could damn well bring the ship home at full speed. As Tandred left to return to his duties, he could hear shouting topside. Tandred took the steps two at a time as the shouting grew desperate.

 

"Should we prep the cannons?" one gunner asked.

 

"Could we even take out that thing?" said another.

 

"It's the Horde! Come to finish us like in the Second War!" someone shouted.

 

Coming onto the deck Tandred looked around, taking stock of the situation and trying to locate his first mate. The remains of the fleet were sailing with commendable speed. Bridgette was still at the helm from having taken over for him. Seeing him she waved and pointed starboard. Tandred saw what his crew were talking about.

 

The dragon was massive.

 

Easily as large as his own ship, its scales glittered like sapphires in the sunlight, the wings dwarfed their sails. Despite its size, it moved through the air easily.

 

It was circling the retreating fleet at a distance within rifle range, but Tandred doubted something as trifling as a mere rifle would inconvenience this creature. Cannons might tickle a bit, but even though his fire-teams were good, he wasn't certain they could have hit this creature. The dragon was swift.

 

And looking for something.

 

The glowing pink eyes were scanning the ships. Perhaps this brute had been sent to find Jaina and end her life despite her escape.

 

Tandred's chest burned in anger. He turned to issue orders when Genn Greymane, once more in his worgen form, bounded past him towards the fore of the ship and the dragon. Greymane hauled himself up into the rigging then fired off a _flare gun_?

 

"KALECGOS!" Greymane roared over the sea.

 

The massive dragon tracked the signal flare back to the source, or perhaps the dragon's hearing was good enough he could hear Greymane. Then the dragon turned without seeming effort and _hurried_ to fly alongside the ship. Tandred's heart stopped as he took in the enormous blue beast up close. The thumping beats of the wings made his ears pop as they changed the air pressure around them.

 

Greymane landed back to the deck with a satisfied growl and waved the dragon in. Tandred had the absent presence of mind to call off his anti-boarding crews and gunners as the dragon approached.

 

To his surprise the dragon shrank as it came closer until its body dissolved into a cloud of aetheric (thank you, big sister) dust and a tall half-elf with long, dark blue hair landed on the deck with a half step as the ship rolled under his feet.

 

"Kalec!" Greymane called out, walking forward to meet the dragon. The two clasped hands.

 

Kalec? Where had Tandred heard that name before?

 

"Where is she?" the dragon demanded.

 

"This way. Horde bastards nearly killed her. She held off their forces so we could get out," Greymane said, leading the dragon towards the stairs and to Jaina.

 

Tandred watched curiously as the two hurried down. Then he shook himself and began to shout orders. They'd lost some speed to gaping at an apparently friendly dragon. The issue of the visitor would sort itself out - his duty was to see the fleet, and his sister, home with all speed.

 

* * *

 

 

Kalec ducked under the doorway as they went down the steps. Jaina was being cared for in the captain's quarters at the rear of the ship. Three people in robes, one a worgen, were clustered around her. Kalec could feel their magic, a mix of shamanic and priestly. The priest's Light faltered and the worgen fell onto his rear, tongue lolling in his canine mouth, eyes rolling back. Genn went to him and helped the spent priest to sit out of the way. Kalec hardly noticed.

 

Jaina was pale save for the dark bruises already beginning to form on her body. She'd been stripped down to her essentials and even those had been ripped or torn as the healers worked on closing wounds and placing poultices on the worst of the damage. Healing energy was being poured into her. Kalec judged the healers were undoing or controlling internal damage of some kind. Her hair had mostly fallen out of a long braid and lay in a limp halo around her head.

 

Kalec's feet took him closer to her bedside. It had been hard to hear her desperate plea, but he'd found her. He hadn't known what he'd find when he'd opened a portal, but he'd not expected to find her so still and quiet on the bed. Jaina's chest barely rose and fell as the healers worked.

 

She'd been in a desperate fight - the lingering echoes of her power had been what he'd used to find her. Now though, her magic was low - low enough he was concerned she might become sick from it and complicate what else was wrong. He could fix that at least.  

 

Kalec crossed the distance to kneel at Jaina's bedside out of the way of the healers. He took one of his beloved's hands in his own. Her other arm was one massive bruise under the careful hands of a healer. Her fingers were cold and not from frost. He kissed her knuckles then began to channel a portion of his own power into her. Just a bit. She was starved for magic and too much could hurt her just as too little could. In her already weakened state- Kalec couldn't complete the thought.

 

"Who are you? What are you doing?" One of the healers asked.

 

"He is a friend," Greymane answered.

 

"She is a mage," Kalec said, distracted while he focused on what he could do to help Jaina. "She used all the energy she had. Being so low when she's hurt will only make everything worse."

 

Jaina stirred on the bed with a soft noise. Her eyes opened slightly, unfocused. They began to glow faintly and Kalec felt her pulling on his magic, trying to gain more. Her face contorted into a grimace of pain. He murmured soothingly and caressed her forehead. "Easy. Easy, Jaina."

 

She focused on him then relaxed with a soft wondering expression. "Kalec," she said, her voice breathy and weak. Kalec's stomach twisted and his heart seized, he was happy and relieved to hear her but she sounded frail. "I'm sorry." She closed her eyes in pain. "I'm _so_ sorry."

 

"Shh. It's okay," Kalec told her as he continued to gently stroke her hair.

 

Jaina made another sound of discomfort. Her eyelids fluttered before she fell very still, the draw on his magic dropping to a trickle.

 

"What's happening?" Kalec demanded of the healers.

 

"We're doing all we can, but she is very injured."

 

"I can teleport her elsewhere or make a portal for you to-"

 

"She cannot be moved," the older, more grizzled of the two healers, snapped.

 

"Would more healers help?"

 

"Yes, but we're still hours from Kul Tiras," the younger healer said.

 

"If you can teleport or bring more help here, that would be best," the older healer said. "My apprentice and I are all that's left and we're reaching the end of our abilities. Damn Horde was _looking_ for anyone healing."

 

"Genn!" Kalec roared even as he began to construct a portal. The worgan looked up, ears perked. "Genn, I'm opening a portal to Stormwind. I need you to find any healers you can. Hurry," Kalec ordered as he finished opening the portal to Stormwind.

 

Greymane glanced at Jaina, at the portal, then dashed through.

 

"What's going on?" A tall man asked as he entered the room. His hair was the same color Jaina's had been. He looked from the portal to Kalec. "You- You're holding open a portal on a ship at sea? Can you get her to the mainland?"

 

The elder healer snarled at the suggestion. The younger healer said, "She cannot be moved," her voice plaintive.

 

The newcomer swore. "Well then- Reinforcements?"

 

"Yes. Let us work!" The elder snapped.

 

The man, Kalec suspected it might be a relative of Jaina's, perhaps the younger brother she'd mentioned, fell silent.

 

Kalec focused on holding the portal open for Genn to return through, while he continued to push power into Jaina. Holding the portal was made difficult by the steady motion of the ship as they sailed towards Kul Tiras. He had to make make constant fine adjustments to keep it stable.

 

How long would Genn be in finding someone? Would he find Anduin? Kalec had opened the portal right beside the Keep. What if Anduin was away from Stormwind? Who else could Kalec call upon? Would he be able to find Alexstrasza?

 

An eternity later he felt a hand on his shoulder. "I found help for her," Genn said, sounding winded. Kalec looked up as more people joined the cluster of healers around Jaina. Anduin he was not surprised to see, but he'd not expected _Velen_.

 

The powerful priests called upon the Light and began to aid the shamen already working on Jaina. Kalec let the portal close.

 

He kissed the knuckles of the hand he still held and waited to see if she would live.

 

* * *

 

As Tandred walked belowdecks, he knew everything topside was working smoothly. If it hadn't been, he'd have been summoned.  His crew had been the finest in the fleet before they'd been lost in that damnable storm. They'd held themselves and their ship together the best. The fleet was in dire need of repairs for both vessels and crews, but when the time had come to sail for Zandalar, his people had stepped up. A Kul Tiran ship would take their new Lord Admiral, their savior, in to battle.

 

There was only one thing left which Tandred could do to help his big sister - sit nearby but out of the way of the healers as they tried to save her life. Should the worst happen, at the least she would pass with family close by.

 

He was shocked when the first unfamiliar robe-clad healer had rushed out of the cabin, staggering just a bit as the ship rolled with the waves. Then the second followed, both heading topside where the rest of the injured were. Jaina's life had been placed above others even though he knew Jaina would have hated it. What was going on? His stomach dropped and he rushed forward into the cabin, only to be brought up short by the scene in front of him.

 

The two tidesages were still at work, but they'd been joined by not only the dragon, but a familiar golden-haired man in fine clothing and a very tall, very old looking... Draenei. The name of the race came more slowly to him. Word had reached Kul Tiras of such people during their isolation, but Tandred had no occasion to meet one until he'd met the members of the Alliance.

 

"Prince Anduin and Prophet Velen are two of the strongest healers in the Alliance," Genn Greymane said from an out of the way spot to Tandred's right.

 

Right. Prince Anduin. That's how he knew the young man. The new King of Stormwind was a priest by training.

 

"Will she live?" Tandred asked.

 

"If she does not, it won't be for lack of healing power," Greymane said, his ears flicking as the ship creaked under sail. He put a hand on Tandred's shoulder. "She is strong. I believe she will pull through."

 

"She's unbelievably strong," Tandred said.

 

He'd seen the beginning of the fight as they fled Zandalar. She'd frozen the sea. She'd held off an army.

 

He'd felt the power call to them as the storm had parted and home had been revealed before the lost fleet. There were pirates in the bay and while he and his crew were all battered, tired and hungry, they were the Kul Tiran Navy and by the seas, they would protect their home or die trying.

 

 _That_ had been his sister's power. The sea hadn't just been in the blood of their father's family, it had been strong in his mother's, too. She'd been a captain in her own right before she'd married Daelin Proudmoore. But his mother hadn't been able to call the fleet home through the unnatural storm - Jaina had.

 

Had she somehow called the dragon? Was he a friend?

 

"Who is the dragon?" Tandred asked.

 

"That is Kalecgos, the former Aspect of Magic. He is currently on the Council of Six in Dalaran. Or he was last I heard."

 

"How did he know to come here?"

 

Genn blew out a breath, his ears flicking back. "I do not know."

 

"You suspect."

 

"It's not my place to say."

 

"Say it anyway," Tandred said, facing the worgen.

 

"They were in a romantic relationship."

 

Tandred was not entirely surprised given Greymane's evasiveness. It was... unusual, but then Jaina tended to not do things by halves. "The Aspect of Magic you say?" Tandred asked, turning his attention to the dragon. "What sort of person is he?" he asked.

 

"Kalecgos?" Genn's bushy eyebrows rose and fell as he thought. "Even if the Aspects aren't what they once were, he's still a terribly powerful mage. He was instrumental in helping fight the Legion-"

 

Tandred cut him off with a small wave. "What sort of person is he?"

 

Genn nodded his understanding. "He is... a mage. Less prone to mercurial fits like some mages I could name. He's not one to throw weight around and rain destruction down." Genn huffed out a breath. "I have not interacted with him much but I get the sense he would much rather be in a tower someplace doing research."

 

"Lots of big words but doesn't notice he's using them?" Tandred asked, earning a nod. "Trails off mid-sentence?" Another nod. "Enormous library?"

 

"Technically he still owns the Nexus in Coldarra. I would say it is a certainty."

 

"Wields terrifying, fundamental forces of creation and destruction but doesn't even consider mere mortals would find being able to teleport halfway across the planet as easily as stepping into another room to be awe inspiring because it's just so easy?"

 

The worgen's ears were both pointed forward and the corner of his muzzle had quirked up in a smirk. "Yes."

 

Tandred blew out a breath. "Well, they say like attracts like." He crossed his arms and leaned back against the cabin wall. "Does he treat her better than the last one?"

 

"The- Arthas? I daresay that's a low bar, but yes."

 

Tandred sneered in memory of the now dead paladin. "He treated her poorly even before."

 

The worgen's ears flicked back in surprise by the venom. Tandred glared into the middle distance. Kul Tiras's isolation had meant he'd not taken part in killing Arthas Menathil. That the prince had become a genocidal murderer which was reason enough... But the man had made his big sister cry.

 

Arthas been demanding and patronizing of Jaina and his sister has somehow loved him despite this. It had been baffling. A much younger Tandred had been told the Prince was from Lordaeron which had a different culture and he shouldn't judge, and he was too young to understand, and that Jaina marrying wouldn't mean he was less of her brother and he should be happy. Tandred had tried because Jaina loved him and he wanted her to be happy, but there had been something about the way Arthas spoke to her that he didn't like.

 

"Kalecgos is very kind," Genn said into the silence. "A bit academic, but he is an honest being."

 

Tandred nodded. He would still need to see what sort of person this Kalecgos was - if he still had feelings for his sister. Judging by the way he was tending to her, Tandred thought it was likely. So why then had his sister sailed in to Boralus on their father's ship without him?

 

And how in the world had Lady Ashvane taken her into custody so she could be sent to Fate's End of all forsaken places?


End file.
